Tag Archives: lactobacillus

Sometimes things happen that seem to come out of nowhere. It happens to all of us, usually when we least expect it because we are busy taking care of others or life in general. So here’s a scenario: Imagine that one day your blood sugar suddenly skyrockets and your Medical physician informs you that your liver and pancreas are not functioning properly. What could cause this? Well, many things could, but the one thing in common is inflammation. If the pancreas is inflamed, the Islets of Langerhans sometimes stop producing insulin and blood sugar doesn’t get stored, so it jumps up. If the inflammation is early in life, the immune system may go to the point of forming antibodies to the Islets, destroying them and causing Type 1 diabetes. If the body becomes inflamed later in life, cells may not respond to insulin anymore, causing Type 2 diabetes. But if the pancreas is inflamed, it doesn’t work properly. The liver can be implicated too, as it stores extra energy (glucose) reserves for when you need them. Liver inflammation can also cause diabetes. While these changes are all known to occur in people that are obese and have an unhealthy diet, how is it possible for it to happen this quickly, and in someone who isn’t obese? The answer lies in the fact that the immune system is mostly controlled by our gut bacteria and GALT, or gut-associated lymphoid tissue, dendritic nerve endings, and other points of information exchange between the microbiome and the host immune system.

Research has shown that exposure to short-term social/emotional stress causes alteration of the gut microbiome. This altered microbiome in turn does not control the immune system approriately, resulting in increased systemic inflammation (which can make the social stress worse, as both the inflammation and the altered microbiome affect brain function and mood). See the illustration above, which is from my book The Symbiont Factor.

Another factor that can alter the microbiome and trigger widespread inflammation is short term dietary change, to a less beneficial diet. In research terminology, a diet that causes microbiome demise, inflammation and disease is called a Western Diet. It is used to produce a sick lab animal to study, and mimics what the average American consumer eats every day.

Sleep is absolutely necessary for a healthy microbiome, and disruptions of our circadian rhythms and sleep cycles has been shown to disrupt our microbiome and cause inflammation.

Exposure to air affects our microbiome too! Air is actually replete will huge numbers of human skin cells and bacteria from other people in the vicinity. The longer we are in a space with other people, the more we inhale parts of their microbiome combined with the microbiome of the space. These organisms then influence our own microbiome, so if the exposure was to unhealthy microbiomes, the result can be…inflammation once more.

Sometimes the scenario can revive imbalances and infections we’ve had before, such as chronic viral infections (shingles, for example, or herpes) or chronic bacterial infections such as Lyme disease-where the organism was in a dormant state due to good immune function-waiting for an opportunity.

Ok, so…can we picture a scenario where all of the above are combined? Stress, bad food, interrupted sleep with no real dark/light cycles, and lots of sick people/bad bacteria? Bingo-it’s the place where we send people to get well: a hospital.

What should we do to recover from this systemic inflammation?

Regular sleep, hitting the bed and waking same time every day, preferably in a multiple of 90 minutes. So, 6 hours, 7.5 hours, 9 hours so that we don’t interrupt a sleep cycle. No lights, no devices at night. No bright little blue “charging” LEDs.

Healthy food, and preferably some of it fermented. There is a great fermented oatmeal recipe earlier on this blog, and many areas have private individuals making fantastic fermented vegetables. Here in coastal Maine, “A Stone’s Throw to Health” is one such business, with handcrafted ferments by Sheila Perloff-Eddison.

Curcumin is hugely effective for reducing inflammation, improving insulin sensitivity, healing liver and pancreas. Not turmeric, which is 5% curcumin, but 95% curcumin-the real stuff. I take 6-8 capsules a day, minimum, if I’m injured or inflamed. It works better than drugs-check out the Ghosh study in the bibliography below.

Some other products, such as jerusalem artichokes/sunchokes, jicama, artichokes, asparagus, pomegranate, rhubarb, ginger have been shown to have fantastic prebiotic and anti-inflammatory benefits.

Make a point of, several times per day, praying or meditating on peaceful/optimistic and loving thoughts while breathing deeply. The physiologic effects improve autonomic tone and gut function, helping to recolonize healthy bacteria while healing gut membranes.

It’s early morning on the Maine coast, and as I do my usual “thing” and look at my social media feeds I see a pattern on Twitter: dozens of people have either written about or retweeted references to a Lancet study showing “no benefit for Bifidobacterium breve in premature infants”. Well, that sounded unlikely to me, so I started to drill deeper into the information. First, it is important to state that several prior studies have found that Bifido does indeed help; a review of the studies by Baucells had the same conclusion. There is a very obvious major problem with the logic behind the study saying there is no benefit, and I’m going to point it out in a moment. Let’s look at a bit of background for anyone not familiar with the issues discussed.

Our bodies are colonized by trillions of symbiotic bacteria, and they help to build our immune system and keep our gut healthy (along with many other critical functions). Premature infants face several challenges, including necrotizing enterocolitis-an inflammatory infection of the intestines that is often fatal. The colonization of the intestines with symbiotic bacteria begins prior to birth, but really progresses after normal birth because of ingestion of a starter culture of vaginal bacteria and breastfeeding, which provides needed prebiotics (substances that feed beneficial bacteria) present in breast milk. Not breastfeeding is a risk factor for an abnormal gut bacterial population, as is birth by c-section, as both rob the infant of the mother’s bacteria. Premature infants often face both challenges.

The research study in question examined the use of a strain of Bifidobacterium breve in premature infants to reduce the incidence of necrotizing enterocolitis. The probiotic was added to dilute elemental infant formula, with the control group receiving only the formula. There was no benefit found to the introduction of B. breve in this manner. This finding has been trumpeted across the Twitterverse since the study was published, usually with the title just saying there is no benefit.

The first issue is that infant formula has already been shown to be inferior to human breast milk for the prevention of necrotizing enterocolitis (Hay). Why use infant formula instead of human breast milk? Apparently this is quite common, which astounds me. With the hundreds of thousands of dollars in equipment and training involved in premature infant care, human breast milk is not routinely used although it reduces fatal infections? I was actually a little shocked by this, but considering the anti-breastfeeding bias that still exists for some reason, it may not be so surprising. Corporate influence on the birth process has long promoted formula over breast, against all scientific logic.

The second issue is related to the first. One of the basic foundation concepts of probiotic interventions that is familiar to any health practitioner versed in symbiont-based health strategies is “Seed and Feed”. Adding beneficial organisms and then not feeding them does not work as well as nourishing them after their introduction. Sounds simple enough, right? Studies have already been done showing that formula and breast milk are quite different in their effect on symbiont organisms (Liu) with breastmilk being superior. Another study (Repa) showed that probiotics prevented necrotizing enterocolitis in infants fed breastmilk but not in those fed formula. Another study (Yao) found that adding Oligosaccharides (a prebiotic) to infant formula raised Bifidobacterium levels in those infants.

So, in summary, this study found that the introduction of Bifidobacterium probiotic to a premature baby receiving formula of no nutritional benefit to the organism was of no benefit. And this is somehow considered newsworthy? The concepts behind “seed and feed” are not revolutionary, complex nor undiscovered. It isn’t rocket science; if you don’t feed the organisms they do not survive. Yet, the articles referring to the study simply state “Bifidobacterium of no use in premature infants”…..which is simply not true, even if it is “on the Interwebs”.

Life sometimes keeps us quite busy, doesn’t it? I apologize to you, my readers, for the scarce blog posts. I’ve been in the process of pulling off an epic home move of about 1700 miles! So, I write this post while in a campground in Lamoine, Maine USA where I’ve been hunting up a new home for my family and I.

I did quite a bit of research reading about ADHD recently, and thought I would share a few thoughts about it. Most of these thoughts are summarized in the flow chart drawing I created; refer to it when reading this blog post and you’ll see what I mean. What can be learned from a simple uBiome stool sample that can help with ADHD? Well, it turns out that there is quite a bit to look at there! As usual, this isn’t meant to replace your physician’s advice, and it is an example-which may not exactly describe your situation. You should consider using uBiome to run your (or your child’s) sample to see what your particular situation consists of.

The first thing to consider is the imbalance that frequently occurs in a microbiome. You see, it isn’t just about how many species of bacteria live in your gut, it is also about the relative numbers of those species. uBiome, after processing your sample, shows this in the simplest way by clicking on Taxonomy tree. In this format, the larger circles indicate larger populations while the smaller ones indicate, well, smaller. Clicking on each allows one to expand the data down from the phylum level all the way down to the genus level (remember, all life is cataloged by Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species. We usually use Genus, Species to identify organisms, such as Homo sapiens or Helicobacter pylori.) When expanding these circles, often there is an obvious imbalance. At this point, I’m going to share some very specific information, and some or all of it may not apply to you or your child. It is an example of how a uBiome analysis can correlate with a condition and symptoms, directing some interventions. One recent patient case was a good example; the only large circles were Firmicutes, which is not such a bad thing. Opening that led to Clostridia being dominant, while Bacilli was minimal. This is meaningful because Bacilli includes Lactobacillus-one of the definite “good guys” that keep things working well. The phylum Actinobacteria was also minimal, significant because it includes another desirable genus, Bifidobacterium. This organism is an initial colonizer of the gut, tames the immune system, and also works with Lactobacillus to produce BDNF.

BDNF stands for Brain Derived Neurotrophic Factor, and it is necessary for the brain to develop new connections and grow/adapt to the life an individual leads. It is needed for plasticity, that ability of the brain to learn and adapt as needed. Low levels of BDNF are associated with ADHD. Your microbiome helps your brain to produce BDNF. Remember that a big part of what your brain learns to do as you grow up is actually blocking things out, not paying attention to more of them. It is a learning process, and in order to concentrate to accomplish tasks we must learn to attenuate non-essential information. This is also necessary for the brain to conserve fuel, because having a neural response to every incoming signal would burn a lot of fuel-in fact, enough to run out in some areas and cause Oxidative Stress.

Oxidative stress can result from depressed levels of antioxidant reserves or from too much stimulation. When nerve cells get overstimulated, they build up waste products and the energy-producing mitochondria become damaged. This is a “cellular death spiral”, because as soon as the mitochondria become damaged, the cell’s capability to metabolize fuel and produce energy is compromised, leading to more oxidative stress and further damage. This has been identified as part of the disease process in Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s as well as ADHD and Autism. One of the problems that can promote Oxidative Stress is Inflammation.

Inflammation occurs when the immune system become too reactive and begins to attack tissue that is “self” and not “intruder/enemy”. Bifidobacteria are known for helping to dampen the immune inflammatory response, and a deficiency of Bifido contributes to inflammation. Again, inflammation is a key building block of…yes, all the same neurologic diseases. Low levels of Bifidobacteria and Lactobacillus are also significant because these organisms produce a neurotransmitter called Gamma Amino Butyric Acid or GABA.

GABA is an inhibitory neurotransmitter in the brain, and calming drugs or herbs often boost GABA levels. Valerian root or Valium (copycat drug companies, you know?) are good examples as is Kava Kava. Low levels of Lacto and Bifido gut bacteria result in low levels of GABA at the brain. Low levels of GABA at the brain result in less inhibition…ergo, more stimulation! And, the process continues in a positive feedback loop.

It is interesting to note that one intervention that helps elevate GABA and BDNF is exercise. Kids with ADHD are known for often being hyperkinetic, so if you wondered why, it is their brain’s way of balancing the equation to save nerve cells! When kids are reprimanded by teachers and parents are shamed into medicating their children’s “high energy”, it can be detrimental to the developmental process for this reason. This doesn’t mean that doing nothing is better, as a child must be able to focus in order to be able to learn. It just means that medicating their energy level down does not address the root causes of the problem.

So, what would be some natural interventions? First, improved nutrition. Any food that is causing more inflammation needs to be removed from the diet. Often that is sweets (note that Clostridia like sweets) and sometimes specific items such as gluten containing foods. Adding probiotics that contain the Lacto and Bifido organisms (in this patient example) can of course be helpful, but more so if they are also fed the prebiotic fibers that they need to survive (again, ideally this is case-specific). Both can be added to a fruit and vegetable smoothie that is tasty. Neuroprotective supplements such as N-Acetylcysteine will help to minimize the neuronal damage that is occurring. Also DHA/Omega-3 oils are neuroprotective and have been shown to help with ADHD. Curcumin can also reduce the neuroinflammation and is protective as well. It can also help settle gut function and heal the membranes of the intestines if they were inflamed too. Eating less processed food and more fresh (organic as possible) fruits and vegetables helps.

All of these steps are best carried out after having a stool sample analyzed for gut bacteria. Only after seeing the “bacterial census” is it possible to be extremely specific. A different patient’s samples could result in different recommendations! Please contact me for more details should you wish to find out more or schedule an analysis. This does not have to be done locally, as I only need the data from uBiome and a patient questionnaire to determine recommendations. Some of the supplements recommended are not case-specific, such as NAC, DHA/Omega and Curcumin as these will help most types of situations as will a healthier diet. The probiotic formulation is ideally case-specific, as is the prebiotic fibers and these will preferentially feed some categories of organisms more than others.

With proper lab work and specific interventions, it is possible for many individuals with ADHD to control and manage their situation more effectively. For some, it will be more of a cure, with no medication needed. For others, it may mean less medication is needed or the medication works more effectively. It is important to realize that we are all different, and our situations are also different!

Sources for supplements: http://progressivelabs.com/ You’ll have to register to order from them, and it requires specifying who referred you. Please feel free to put my name on that line, and then you will be able to receive your supplements directly from the same manufacturer I use!

One of the central concepts of The Symbiont Factor is that there are times in nature that organisms can take control of another organism’s nervous system, rendering it “a zombie”. This isn’t a zombie in the Hollywood sense, just a host organism that no longer is singularly in control of itself due to the effects of other organisms that “hijack” its nervous system.

In this case, a new organism has been discovered, a fearsome looking wasp in Thailand. This wasp hunts cockroaches, and injects a neurotoxin into them. This makes the cockroach lose active control of its legs so that it cannot escape, and the wasp can eat it slowly while it is still alive. Nature really has some gruesome stories, doesn’t it?

In our own bodies, we have a colony of trillions of bacteria. The late Prof Eshel Ben-Jacob performed experiments and wrote articles documenting how large bacterial colonies were able to act with logic, more as multicellular organisms. Like multicellular organisms, their activities have a goal: survival. In the case of our microbiome, it is beginning to appear that their ability to alter our nervous system function and our brain activity is not randomized. There is a bi-directional influence at work: as an example, the bacteria that thrive on a fatty diet make us crave fatty foods, and those that thrive on sweets make us crave sweets. If we eat the fatty foods or sweets, it of course preferentially benefits the organisms that thrive on it. This is why there seems to be a “tipping point” in gaining weight such that our energy level drops and our appetite changes, facilitating weight gain. The actual organisms that help us lose weight and stay lean have been identified (Akkermansia mucinophilia is one example), as have those that make us gain weight. Their effect is significant enough that they have been called “obesogens”. It isn’t a single organism but a pattern of demographic shift-more of these/less of those-that results in weight gain or loss.

The changes to brain function, sensory sensitivity (ie what smells tasty to you), mood and behavior shift (a stress microbiome!) make us just a little like a zombie too in some cases. Certainly our behavior and our function is the result of the activity of trillions of symbiont organisms as well as our own decision-making. In effect “we” are composed of many organisms!

So today I thought I would share some simple practical microbiome advice!

Steps to a Healthy Microbiome
1. Start noticing how tense, stressed or up-tight you may have become. Dedicate a few minutes several times a day to taking an emotional census of this, then focus on deep breathing and refocusing your attention on a positive, healthy or loving thought and emotion. Notice how you feel afterward!

2. Be honest with yourself about what you eat or drink. I know many people who eat a great deal of sweets or fast food, making an excuse for each time “it’s a reward for such-and-such” or “it’s just a one-time treat” and my favorites “it’s just a little” and “gotta die from something”. All of these statements are simply our imbalanced gut microbiome craving something and then our mind making excuses for not eating healthier. Be honest with yourself and look at what you’re really eating!

3. Sleep is critical-if you’re not sleeping enough it is very challenging to build a healthy microbiome. We should sleep at least 7 1/2 hours per night and preferably 9 when possible. Notice these are both multiples of 90 minutes, which is the typical length of a sleep cycle that the brain goes through. Waking up halfway through one makes us feel sluggish and irritated-complete your sleep cycles by planning on it!

4. Learn to observe your mood, your bodily functions and their timing in relation to your diet. Did you get sleepy, sluggish and mildly irritated after lunch? You may have eaten something that triggered an inflammatory response in your gut, which then affects the brain. Do you cough or sneeze after eating certain foods? This can also be a clue. If you’re not having a daily bowel movement of normal consistency; not loose and not stone; then your gut bacteria/gut/immune system are imbalanced in function and you have homework to do.

5. Eating organic or wild meat or fish is much better than normal store-bought meat. The antibiotic residues in farmed meat that is not organic are sufficient to seriously imbalance your gut bacteria with long-term consequences. I believe this may be one reason that many people get healthier when they eliminate meat from their diet-no meat is better than unhealthy meat.

6. Eating homegrown or organic vegetables and produce helps also, because if it isn’t it probably has significant RoundUp glyphosate on or in it. These residues are very toxic to beneficial gut bacteria.

7. Limit your use of chemicals such as Roundup. It’s poisoning the planet’s microbiome, and it starts with your microbiome. Pesticides and solvents are also quite harmful so if you must use them, wear protection and use ventilation to avoid inhaling fumes.

8. Read and understand the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) guidelines for medical antibiotic use, and hold your doctor to them. It will help you to understand when you really do need them and when you actually don’t. I haven’t personally taken antibiotics in at least 28 years and intent to extend that as long as possible.

9. Drink filtered water or spring water. Sweet soft drinks are bad for gut bacteria, and so is chlorinated municipal water.

10. Eat or drink some fermented foods such as natural sauerkraut or kombucha tea, yogurt (if not dairy sensitive) or kefir. You can even make your own. Along with taking good probiotics (which should be selected specifically based on your microbiome profile) this can help maintain a good population of healthy gut bugs.

11. Learn more about the microbiome and its tremendous effect on health, both physical and emotional. One great starting point, if I might suggest it, is my book The Symbiont Factor which you can find on eBay. I put a crazy amount of work into making it the best referenced comprehensive scientifically based book on the subject.

I hope these simple suggestions help you to start your own journey toward a healthier and happier Symbiont lifestyle!

One of the core, pillar concepts of my book The Symbiont Factor is the fact that “our” mind is heavily influenced by the presence and activity of our gut symbiont organisms. Gut bacteria influence different parts of the host/human brain and alter genetic expression and neurotransmitter sensitivity, which alters everything from our stress response to our very personality. In this new research study, researchers demonstrated that changes in gut bacteria resulting from changes in diet result in changes in behavior. Specifically, diets high in sugar and fat resulted in reduced short and long term memory as well as less cognitive flexibility. If you click the link and read the research abstract, you’ll see that the diet used simulates the “Western Diet”. This, folks, is basically the American diet, which has now spread to other parts of the world. In research it is used as the standard diet to produce disease in a laboratory animal! So, what does this have to do with humans, since the study was performed on mice? Well, short and long term memory are daily issues and probably declining across Western society. Don’t think so? Try not using your smart phone to recall phone numbers or addresses but just key them in from memory. Try shopping without any list or remembering the last ten meals you ate. These are not really difficult tasks and yet our modern technology combined with our modern diet/loss of microbiome diversity has resulted in significant reductions in these basic mental functions. What is cognitive flexibility? It is the ability to solve a problem when the rules have changed, or to simply adapt to changes in daily life. When you see a person that gets upset because his/her daily routine gets changed, that is a lack of cognitive flexibility. When you see someone who can no longer figure out how to balance a checkbook because now some of the transactions use debit cards, that is a loss of cognitive flexibility. This research article does a simple, elegant job of pointing out that our diet does in fact alter our microbiome, and that has profound effects on how well our brain operates! The gut microbiome heavily influences the brain, and is in turn heavily influenced by what we eat. Think about that when you see how much sugar today’s children consume…every day that I visit a WalMart I see parents with kids that are unfocused, unruly, and hyperkinetic (all signs of reduced brain frontal lobe function) and then see those parents fill their shopping cart with frozen dinners, cases of sweet soft drinks, and let the kids pick out those fake popsicles that are straight colored sugar water. Think it doesn’t change how a child’s brain and mind develop? The average American is now consuming 152 lbs of sugar per year! that is an average, and includes many like my family who consume far less. So, that is today’s “food for thought”… and also one of the reasons that we should all know more about our gut bacteria. For more information, read my book-The Symbiont Factor-available on Amazon here: http://tinyurl.com/mbb8fvc. If you’d like to know more about your personal microbiome, what organisms are there, good guys and bad guys and what can be done to improve it, contact me. This is one of the services that I now offer!

Well, I had some time between patients yesterday, and, having watched just enough cute cat videos and ignored enough political/religious arguments on Facebook-I decided to do something useful and create a video. This short video should help to make sense out of probiotics, gut bacteria, and how they affect us mentally/emotionally. Check out my new video about gut bacteria and probiotics! http://tinyurl.com/oyvvwt2